Chapter 4:
Takato awoke to someone shaking him slightly. He turned over and smiled, not bothering to open his eyes.
"I had the weirdest dream, mom." Takato mumbled sleepily. "TK Takashi and Ken Ichijouji were there and TK came home with me and some how I was able to convince you to let him sleep over."
Takato turned over to go back to sleep. He heard a long sigh and a pause.
"That wasn't a dream, Takato." TK said. Takato snapped his eyes open and bolted straight up into a sitting position. TK had been the one shaking him and was now looking at Takato with a combination of amusement and concern.
"Heh... hey TK." Takato said sheepishly with a laugh. TK shook his head and straightened up from his bent position.
"Takato! You've got five minutes to get dressed or you are going to be late!" Takato's mom called from the bakery they live over. Takato answered back, slid the door to his room open and walked out, moaning about how school started to early. When he came back he was dressed and carrying some textbooks.
"So, anyway, I was thinking that you might as well hang out in school today." Takato said as he packed his backpack.
"Why should I risk going to a place where so many people will recognize me. I mean, if digimon really is a..." TK had a hard time believing what this reality had done to digimon "children's game, then wouldn't I be more likely to be identified at a place where kids are?" TK said a matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, but you'd be surprised how many kids can keep a secret. Many of them already know about us tamers, and others will just believe you are someone who resembles a cartoon character. So you'll probably be safer with us and besides, being with me is much better than spending the day stuck in a concrete box with Guilmon, believe me." Takato dismissed. Then he added under his breath "Not to mention I get to scare the daylights out of Kenta and Kazu."
Luckily TK didn't hear the last part. The walk to school wasn't long, but it was interesting. TK had never actually been in the Shinjuku district because his mom, being a newspaper reporter, had insisted that downtown Tokyo would have triple if not quadruple the amount of news than Shinjuku suburbs (if you can call them that since they looked closer to the American city of Brooklyn NY than actual suburbs) would have. Like Odiba, there was the standard streets and bridges that allowed people to cross without fear of being hit, but what really striked the TK as odd was the amount of open land there was. Though Odiba had a few good parks and beaches, Shinjuku seemed to have an infestation of small and large parks.
"You like?" Takato asked, noticing the interested look on the digidestined's face.
"Well, this is nothing like Odiba, that's for sure. You have so many individual homes and large apartments. To have such dwelling in Odiba, you have to incredibly rich." TK explained thoughtfully
"Hah! You haven't seen anything. You ought to see Rika's house. All she needs is a crown and she'd be the empress of Japan." Takato didn't notice TK flinch slightly at the name Empress "Of course, her mom is a super model, famous and makes a ton of money so that might have something to do with it." Takato said with a laugh. TK smiled a bit. "Ah, here we are. Shinjuku elementary, also known as the brain washing building. A bit different from city schools, eh?"
TK nodded in agreement.
"Um... Do you have the time. I'd like to get to my friends, but if I'm late, Mrs. Asashi will kill me." Takato asked, looking around at the playground that lay out in front of them.
"Sure." TK said and took out his digivice and held it up to Takato. Takato almost fell over in shock
"A D-3! A real D-3!" Takato said, his voice quivering in excitement. "I forgot that you had this. This is so much cooler than the toy ones I see."
Takato took the digivice into his hand and held it gingerly. He looked at the time.
"Oh good. We've got almost fifteen minutes left before the bell rings. Let's go!" Takato said. He walked straight through the playground and into the maze of different play-things. As they went farther, the echoing of two boys were heard. Takato put a finger to his lips in a signal of silence and tiptoed to one of the slides.
"Just try and beat my Airdramon." Kenta said arrogantly. Kazu looked at his hand of cards and smirked at his friend.
"You better start walking, Kenta. Because once I put this card down..." Kenta gasped as Kazu slapped a card on the ground. "You'll have to take the long grueling trip to primary village because your digimon has been de-le-ted" Kazu said, enjoying every syllable of the last word. Kenta groaned as Kazu stood up and did a type of disco victory dance.
"Hey guys." Takato said. Kenta looked up.
"Oh, hey Takato." Kenta said quietly.
"Dude, you just missed a major butt whoop from me to Kenta. You really should get up earlier." Kazu said, smiling brightly.
"I could tell you beat Kenta from your bad dancing." Takato answered, ignoring the comment. "But I have an excuse. Us digimon tamers found something amazing last night."
"Oh really. Takato, just because you have a real digimon and we don't doesn't mean you can get all cocky about it." Kenta said unenthusiastically.
"No, really! You see, there was this digital field where we thought there was a Deva. But there wasn't. Instead there was these two kids. Guys, the digimon show is real because the kids were TK Takashi and Ken Ichijouji!" Takato said so rapidly that Kenta and Kazu had to think about what there friend had just said for a few seconds. Once they did, however, they both burst into fits laughter.
"Takato!" Kazu said between laughs. "That has to be the worst story you've ever come up with for sleeping in!"
Takato looked deflated in disappointment, then he smiled slyly.
"And why don't you believe that that happened" Takato asked quite innocently.
"Because, cartoon characters are drawing on sheets of paper. There is simply no way it can happen" Kazu said in such a tone that it sounded like, short of mind control, there was no way to convince him otherwise.
"OK then." Takato said shortly and held up a beckoning finger. TK walked into view.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaah!" Both Kenta and Kazu shouted at the same time and absentmindedly hugged each other. Takato snickered silently.
"Huh. To bad I don't have that kind of an effect on Davis. It would save me and Kari both a lot of trouble." TK said to Takato as soon as the two friends stopped yelling and hastily pulled away from each other. Now they were looking at the supposed cartoon character in awe.
"Oh man, oh man! This is amazing! Kids would pay money to see this, dude." Kazu said. Takato frowned at him and was about to protest when he heard a girl's voice behind him and made him jump three feet.
"Don't tell me you three have been playing digimon before class again. You know Miss Asashi will practically cut off your heads and serve them to the principle if she catches you late again."
Takato rolled his eyes at the brutal exaggeration and turned around to see Jeri, standing a few feet from him with a large textbook in her hands and an annoyed look on her face.
"Oh, it's only you, Jeri. Please don't scare me like that. Sheesh!" Takato said. However, instead of responding with a witty retort, Jeri noticed the blond boy who had also turned around, interested by the new voice. Jeri almost dropped her book.
"It's TK!" Jeri said excitedly. "But Takato... how...?" She reached out to touch TK but he backed away.
"We don't know." Takato responded.
"Oh yes we do" A familiar voice called out. All turned and then Jeri really did drop her book. Standing not far away was Henry with Terriermon, and next to him was a very disgruntled emperor of the digital world. They walked up and henry acknowledged the group with a smile. Ken just gave a slight nod and TK, who was still angry at his enemy, frowned at him. Ken, seeing that, smirked.
"Wow dude! Did you just happen to come across the two most liked digidestined or do you also have Tai and Matt stashed away for a bigger occasion?" Kazu said. Everyone looked at him like he was an idiot.
"Did he just call Ken one of the most liked digidestined?" TK whispered to Takato. Takato smiled.
"That's a funny story. I'll tell you later." Takato whispered back.
"Oh boy." Henry said, exasperated at what Kazu said. Then he looked at his watch and his eyes widened. "Look Takato, there's something I need to tell you, but we need to get to class NOW. I'll meet you during gym, my free period is at the same time. Until then, just make sure to make up a good excuse for why you have a new student accompanying you. Bye."
Both Henry and Ken walked away.
"Wait, what's your excuse?" Takato called.
"Foreign exchange student from America. It's amazing how well Ken can mimic accents." Henry called back, opened the door and walked into the building. Takato sighed, then the bell rang and the whole group ran for class.
***
"Yeah, so? Opening the program nearly got us killed." Takato said, looking up at the thick rope he was required to climb. Henry was behind him, telling him about what they found out last night.
"Yeah, I know. But it's the only way." Henry said. Then he smiled amusingly at Takato who looked very distressed about climbing 20 feet of a flimsy rope. "You know, when you climb, try using your hands instead of your feet to push up. You'll probably get farther than two feet this time."
Takato groaned and grasped the rope. In the mean time, Ken and TK were watching from afar.
"We don't have much time." Ken said, staring straight ahead even though the statement was directed at TK.
"Oh, am I actually worthy to converse with the great digimon emperor, your imperial highness?" TK said in sarcastic surprise. Ken scowled deeply at his enemy and looked at him with fire in his eyes.
"Stop acting like an imbecile. It doesn't suit you." TK turned and calmly faced Ken. "Something's wrong. Can't you feel it? We need to get back to our own dimension, so I was thinking that-"
"You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" TK interrupted angrily. "Don't think I can't feel the pressure and pain of being sucked back into that wormhole molecule by molecule. I first though it was our fight, but then I realized you don't hit that hard. I know what you're going to say, and just because we're in this situation doesn't mean I'm going to take orders from you."
"That we ought to come up with a temporary truce." Ken continued, looking strangely at TK. "I'll make you a deal. You make sure I don't get killed and I'll make sure you don't get killed. I also am not an idiot, Takashi. I know when it's time to fight, and when it's time to stop. And right now, we have no choice but do the latter. And believe me, don't expect this kind of treatment when we get back."
TK looked at Ken for a while, then nodded in agreement. The unblinking glare between then was only broken when Takato yelped in surprise and fell off the rope into the thick cushions below.
***
Mitsuo Yamamoto examined a piece of equipment at his work station at the Hypnos laboratory. He heard footsteps coming his way, but didn't even look up because he knew who it was.
"You're late." Mitsuo said. Shin gave him an annoyed look.
"Well, sorry for wanting to spend a little time with my family. If I keep coming home at ten like I did last night, my wife is going to think I'm doing drugs or cheating on her." Shin sighed melodramatically. "Sometimes, I envy you for not having a life."
"You do realize that I'm still your boss and could fire you for less than that little comment you just made." Mitsuo huffed. Shin shrugged. Then Mitsuo stood up rather quickly. "Get the team. Yamaki was able to find out a bit of information for us and I have new pieces of equipment for. So be happy that I don't have a life."
"Wonderful. Where are we going?"
"Back to school, my friend. It's been a while since I've visited Shinjuku elementary. Almost twenty years, as a matter of fact." Mitsuo smiled. He'd lived in Shinjuku all his adolescent life up until he graduated from high school and knew where the schools were located. Shin, however, stiffened.
"Shinjuku elementary? My kids go to that school. And believe me, it's not like you can just waltz in there and take two kids out of class unnoticed. You'd be surprised how jumpy schools are these days about lax security measures." Shin said. Mitsuo grabbed his coat.
"Fine, we wait till they're out of school so we don't attract attention."
Shin nodded and clapped his hands together.
"Let's do this" He said.
***
"So anyway, if we do this, we do it tonight." Henry explained. "Hypnos is actually located in the Tokyo towers. We can sneak in if we use the Hyper wing card and fly through a large balcony that I believe sits on the fiftieth floor. Then it's up to you, Takato, and Rika to create a diversion."
"And what makes you think this will work?" Takato asked. He, Henry, Ken and TK were walking along the main street of Shinjuku. All were paying very close attention to the plans.
"Because it has to work." TK said.
"Right. We have to get them back as soon as possible. Yamaki's after these two and it won't be long until he find's them." Henry said.
The group rounded a corner an was met by Rika. She gave a slight nod and moved into the group.
"Did you boys have a nice day?" Rika said sarcastically.
"As a matter of fact, Rika, we did." Takato shot back. Rika turned to make a crude remark but was interrupted by her digimon.
"Rika. Those men from the other night are here." Renamon said from the roof of a low building. Rika nodded at the digimon while the others turned to see four men get out of a van with different electronic devices.
"Oh shoot, oh shoot." Henry whispered. "Guys, keep walking calmly. Maybe they won't notice us."
However, soon after they started walking, Henry saw on of the gadgets beep in their direction and the men start to come their way. The group started walking faster but the men were gaining on them.
"RUN!" Henry exclaimed and all broke into sprints. None of them even looked back to see the one of the men giving directions to the other three. Renamon hopped along the roofs of the building, following her partner as the others ran down the sidewalk. They took a left down an ally for a shortcut, but it was cut off by two of the men. Ken, leading the group, slid to a halt and instantly exploded toward the direction they had just came from. However, the other two men blocked the exit and the group was trapped. Renamon dropped in front of her partner and got into a fighting position while Terriermon got ready to drop from Henry's neck and fight. However, a fifth person walked between the two men blocking one of the exits and shot Renamon with a white beam from some type of weapon. Renamon fell over, in the exact same position she had when she was standing. The man held up the weapon.
"Do you know what this is? This is called a data paralyzer. Now I know what it does to digimon, and you little pet will only be like that for a few hours. But I don't know what it will do to half data anomalies like your friends, and I really don't want to find out." The man said. "Now, let us escort you to Hypnos."
Ken and TK, seeing no other choice, walked over to the man.
"Wait!" Henry said desperately. "My dad works at Hypnos, maybe you've heard of him, Janyuu Wong. Please, I must go with Ken an TK."
The man hesitated, looking questionably at Henry. Then one of the men that was blocking the exits called out to him.
"Oh just give him a ride, Mitsuo. Then we won't have to worry about any threats from the kids." The man said jokingly.
"Gee, thanks, Shin... OK, you can come, but if you do anything, I won't hesitate to use this little paralyzer on your rabbit." Mitsuo said. Then he walked off and the other men escorted the three boys to their van, leaving Rika and Takato alone with an injured Renamon. As soon as the boys were in, the van swiftly drove away.
A/N: Wow, that took a long time to finish. I should have the next chapter up a little bit earlier than this one. Please review, I really appreciate it. Thank you